A considerable quantity of alpha-olefins are now available from the cracking of wax derived from petroleum processing. Inasmuch as the monofunctional alpha-olefins are relatively inexpensive a great deal of research work has been undertaken to upgrade these monofunctional substrates to higher value multifunctional products. A promising class of potential products are vicinal- chloroaminoalkanes which contain chloro and amino groups on vicinal carbon atoms in the molecule. The potential market for these di-functional products is estimated to be in the order of millions of pounds.
A useful reactant for converting alpha-olefins to vicinal chloroaminoalkanes is monochloramine (NH.sub.2 Cl) which can be prepared in at least two different ways published in the literature. One reported method of synthesis is the reaction of chlorine with ammonia in the gaseous state*. Another method is to react solutions of sodium hyprchlorite with a solution of ammonia.** Either method is acceptable dependent upon the quantity of starting material required. The generic reaction is to react an alpha-olefin containing 4 to 20 carbon atoms with chloramines at temperatures below 0.degree. and at atmospheric pressure in the presence of aluminum halide, preferably AlCl.sub.3 to produce chloroaminoalkane isomers designated as compounds I and II. ##STR1## R', R", R'", R.sup.IV = alkyl, aryl or hydrogen and X is chlorine or bromine, R.sup.v = H or alkyl and X is chlorine or bromine. The above chloroaminoalkane products can be converted to aziridines by the reaction of a strong base such as potassium or sodium hydroxide, preferably in the presence of lower alkanol. FNT *Sisler et al (JACS, 76.3906(1954) FNT **Coleman et al, Inorg. Syn. 1, 59(1939)
To enable the reader to more readily grasp the essence of the preferred embodiments, the following additional disclosure regarding the reaction parameters are discussed briefly. Finally these reaction parameters are followed by illustrative examples, and Tables. It should be noted that unless otherwise noted all parts and percentages are by weight and all degrees are in centigrade.